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Rise and Reign of tbe 

Inurbntt (iUgarrljg 

By Joseph C. Manning 

of Alabama 



^<y 



September^ lOO/f. 

" Continual aggression is a necessity of a false position." 
— Hon. John Hay. 



ROBERTS « SON, PRINTERS, BHM 



Tzis 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. 
Thk Antk-BelIvUm Politic ai. South 3 

CHAPTER II. 
vy The P01.1TICA1. South at Present 7 

CHAPTER III. 
The Backing Behind the Oi^igarchy 14 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Democratic Race Issue 18 

CHAPTER V. 
C0NC1.US10N 24 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ANTK-BEIvLUM POI.ITICAI, SOUTH. 

" The compromises on the slavery question, inserted in the 
Constitution, were among the essential conditions upon which 
the Federal Government was organized. If the African slave 
trade had not been permitted to continue for twenty years, if it 
had not been conceded that three-fifths of the slaves should be 
counted in the apportionment of representatives in Congress, if 
it had not been agreed that fugitives from service should be re- 
turned to their owners, the Thirteen States would not have been 
able in 1787 ' to form a more perfect union.' These adjust- 
ments in the Constitution were effected after the Congress of the 
old Confederation had dedicated the entire Northwest Territory 
to freedom. The ancient commonwealth of Virginia had, for 
the good of all, generously and patriotically surrendered her title 
to the great country north of the Ohio and east of the Missis- 
sippi, which today constitutes five prosperous and powerful 
states and a not inconsiderable portion of a sixth. This was the 
first territory of which the general government had exclusive 
control, and the prompt prohibition of slavery therein by the 
Ordinance of 1787 is an important and significant fact. The 
ante-slavery restriction would doubtless have been applied to 
the territory south of the Ohio had the power existed to impose 
it. The founders of the government not only looked to the 
speedy extinction of slavery, but they especially abhorred the 
idea of a geographical line, with freedom decreed on one side, 
and slavery established on the other. But the territory south of 
the Ohio belonged to the Southern States of the Union, — Ken- 
tucky to Virginia; Tennessee to North Carolina; Alabama and 
Mississippi to Georgia, with certain co-extensive claims put for- 
ward by South Carolina. When cessions of the Southern terri- 
tory were made to the general government, the States owning it 
exacted in every case a stipulation that slavery should not be 



4 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 

prohibited. It thus came to pass that the Ohio river was the 
dividing line. North of it freedom was forever decreed. South 
of it slavery was firmly established. Within the limits of the 
Union as originally formed the slavery question had therefore 
been compromised, the common territory partitioned, and the 
Republic, half slave, half free, organized and sent forth upon its 
mission." — Blaine's Twenty Years In Congress. 



Students of American history are as conversant, no doubt, 
with the formation of the Union as they are with the revolt of 
the Colonies and the coming into political existence of the 
Thirteen States. This chapter is begun, however, with the 
above quotation from " Twenty Years In Congress, " by James 
G. Blaine, that, from reading this clear and terse language, it 
may be the more distinctly recalled how the States of the South 
had their beginning in the Union of States. North of the Ohio 
" freedom was forever decreed " and " south of it slavery was 
firmly established. " The one section of the Union had become 
in a fact a free government, with government by the consent of 
the governed. The spirit of 1776, that of no taxation without 
representation, had come into actual political life. The States 
of the South, the other section, went forward upon the mission 
of master and slave, of free men and human chattels. The 
States north of the Ohio found their industrial and social condi- 
tions just what free government and free men may evolve. 
Continued in the system of chattel slavery, the States south of 
the Ohio saw the resultant growth of the slave holding power 
reaching into every relation and condition of Southern life. In 
the North the industrial conditions, and the natural result of its 
free environments, developed the steady supremacy of popular 
government and the rise of a statesmanship close to the hearts 
and homes of the whole people. The government of the States 
of the South was dominated by "foremost citizens" of what 
had come to be a slave holding aristocracy. The citizen of the 
ante-bellum South who was not a member of the slave holding 
regime was in evidence neither in political nor social life. 
Even the old-time plantation darkey, the chattel slave, breathed 
from the master the lofty spirit of disdain for the common herd 
and the slave gave expression to this sentiment of superiority by 
reference to the common whites as ** poor white trash." The 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 5 

ordinary white, without slaves, was practically a mere political 
camp follower of the slave holding lord of immense agricultural 
possessions. The poorer whites who had cast their lots imme- 
diately about the princely holdings of the slave owner were as 
much a nonentity, were as pliant to the domineering decrees of 
the slave master, as were the slave subservient and acquiescent 
to the orders of the slave driver. The aristocracy of slave own- 
ing wealth was the dominant and the domineering influence in 
church and state. The pulpit and the press, the law-making 
and the law-executing powers, had behind them the motor 
power, the driving wheel, the controlling sentiment of the slave 
holding regime. In no free government, in name, had a distinct 
class so entrenched its hold upon governing authority and no 
oligarchy ever came into existence in, as alleged, a " land of the 
free and home of the brave" that held tighter grip upon the 
weal or woe of the whole people and their destinies. After 
reading pages to follow it will be seen whether or not the South- 
ern " democracy " has been, in the historic years passing, any 
the less disposed to yield its tenacious hold upon the throat of 
the Southland, so long subjected to the reign of the bourbon 
political despotism. 

True it is that prior to the great civil war there was develop- 
ing, here and there, a tendency of independence among the 
masses and immigration brought to some of these States south 
of the Ohio many men inclined to revolt and particularly in the 
mountain counties of Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama there 
were those who hoped for disenthrallment from the dictatorial 
reign of bourbonism. These men of the common people, and 
here and there a more thoughtful and sane slave owner, were 
not so yielding to the arrogant domination of the slave holding 
oligarchy. It was from the hearts and homes of these brave 
men that eminated opposition to and protest against the revolu- 
tionary and fiery movement of secession, that was precipitated 
by the slave controlling interests, and be it to the credit of these 
brave and patriotic men, who dared to aspire to a true democ- 
racy, that their contentions and expressions for just principles 
was the planting of the seed from which has sprung a strong 
growth of sentiment for popular government until now there are 
thousands in the South who are come to believe that real dem- 
ocracy means that the people shall rule and that an actual dem- 



6 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 

ocrat is one who insists that a fair and honest ballot should be 
inviolate in their hands. The power of the oligarchy over the 
whole people of Alabama was not so strong, in fact, at the verge 
of the war of the Rebellion, for the managers of the secession 
cause dared not to refer the Ordinance of Secession back to the 
people for ratification. The putting of Alabama out of the Union 
was by a method that is tainted with the usual shadow of politi- 
cal force hovering over the achievements of the leaders who 
have, more than once, brought question and dishonor to the 
name of the so-called ** democracy" of t"he South. Secession 
by Alabama was not, indeed, popular expression of the public 
will at the time. The fiery and adroit appeals to the masses 
finally worked up the people to indulgence in this radical course. 
Strange it may appear that the system of chattel slavery in the 
South should produce a political condition in which the 500,000 
slave owners dictated to and dominated over the 7,500,000 
whites of this section at that time. Strange it is, but passing 
strange will it become, when further looking into this Southern 
condition, to realize that the great masses of the South have 
not yet been aroused and delivered from the political serfdom 
into which thej^ fell before the yoke of servitude was taken from 
the necks of the humble blacks. 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 



CHAPTER II, 

THE POLITICAI. SOUTH AT PRESENT. 

The present political South is the progeny of the old politi- 
cal South. The war of the Rebellion wrought the change from 
the South of chattel slavery; it abolished this pernicious insti- 
tution and wiped out the viper of secession, which preyed upon 
the body politic, but there is prevalent today a slavery of dis- 
franchisement by State Constitutional subterfuge and a system 
of peonage by the chicanery of employing legislative enactment 
and there yet obtains the same defiant spirit characteristic of 
the slave owning aristocracy — the despotism of reign or ruin, of 
dominate or destroy! It is alive in the old leaders of the slave 
owning oligarchy, many of them present leaders — and this sen- 
timent is breeded in many of their sons — that theirs is the God- 
given right to control, and to "boss," and that the maintenance 
of their power, by whatever recourse under high heaven, is jus- 
tifiable and "politics!" To the extent that the slave holding 
oligarchy found palliation, through its pulpit and press, for 
holding the colored race in servitude, just so does this progeny 
of the slave owning aristocracy now endeavor to exonerate and 
excuse their political usurpation and their theft of political 
authority. Their recent turning from the manipulation of elec- 
tions returns and outrages at the ballot box to domination by the 
shrewdness of Constitutional trickery, and the divers other 
"legalized" methods known only to and characteristic only of 
the Southern alleged "democracy," is an intended salve to 
ease strictured consciences and, also, a cloak by which the hope 
is had that the real political depravity of this regime of now may 
be to some extent disguised and the wrath of a righteous national 
public sentiment thereby avoided. 

The negro in slavery was subservient, humble, burden-bear- 
ing, ignorant. To the master he was as property. He was 
treated as such by the slave-driver. The slave was housed, 
clothed in a manner, and fed. So was the woik-horse housed, 
harnessed and driven; the negro slave and the working horse 
each being treated with as much humane consideration as the 



8 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 

other. The lash was applied to both. The black child was 
sold from the black "mammy" just as was the colt sold from 
the mare. In the opinion of the many who held slaves it was 
wrong to permit any intellectual growth upon the part of the 
slave and the law made it criminal to teach a negro to read or to 
write. Such an enactment as this at least "graced" the penal 
code of Alabama. It has been related that in the South of 
slavery frequently an apt colored man who had stolen a knowl- 
edge to write suffered the loss of the fore-finger and the thumb 
from the right hand! Is it at all shocking that there is at pres- 
ent a governor of a Southern commonwealth who would declare: 
"I am just as much opposed to Booker Washington's, with all 
his Anglo-Saxon reinforcements, voting as I am to the voting 
by the cocoanut-headed, chocolate-colored, typical coon w^ho 
blacks my boots?" Does it appear out of the reasonable trend 
of things that Mississippi should put a Vardaman in the highest 
position of state, the government there of today being but the 
offspring of its Jefferson Davis oligarchy of slavery of yesterday? 
Who can doubt that the expressions of Vardaman, uncloaked 
with any evasive sophistry and hypocricy, is but the undis- 
guised sentiment of the more discreet of the political type honor- 
ing him and to which he is a member in high rank? This man, 
opposing the education of the negro, is but constructed like one 
of those who, before him, took the knife and shorn the hand of 
the helpless slave of the fingers God had placed there to be 
directed by an educated and uplifted mind! 

In the contemplation of chattel slavery not alone must there 
be considered the wrongs inflicted upon the oppressed blacks 
growing out of this inhumane institution. The hardships, suf- 
fering and wrongs heaped upon the blacks were terrible, but 
the institution of chattel slavery effected to bring about a 
condition by which whites of the South have come to endure a 
yoke of political serfdom and of political outrage beyond the 
power of language to portray. Popular government has become 
prostrate, the voice of the people in representative government 
has been silenced, and force, fraud and strategy has been 
enthroned. The strength of press and ministry, of law-making 
and law-executing authority has been thrown to the aiding and 
abetting of a political despotism that has employed every avail- 
able agency, but the right, to fasten its hold upon the governing 



Risk and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 9 

power. The people of these Southern States have not been, 
from the beginning, the only sufferers because of the desperation 
of the leaders of the bourbon oligarchy. In their extremity of 
madness for domineering, the leaders of the oligarchy have 
reached the knife of rashness to the very heart of the nation and 
drawn its blood on more than one field. When the terms of re- 
entrance to the Union were accepted, even then these party con- 
spirators against popular government, no sooner had they 
attained position in the grand old Union, commenced to execute 
designs by which the hands of the power of the oligarchies of 
the South might again be replaced to the throat of popular and 
representative government in the South and soon again other 
forms of revolution, and riot and reign of terror, were employed 
to hoist the political pillage of this regime upon the liberties and 
national rights of the masses in the states south of the Ohio. 
The present result of this reign of the bourbon oligarchy is that 
its injurious and spurious effects reaches so far into the welfare 
of the general government that whites North, as well as South, 
are coming to feel the poisonous sting of the bourbon "democ- 
racy" political serpent. 

Ample illustration of the revolutionary temperament of the 
Southern "democracy" is afforded in the example of the Rebel- 
lion. That the spirit of govern or overthrow by force did not 
die when secession failed, that the determination to dominate is 
as strong now as then, it is only necessary to refer back to recent 
political events in some of these states during these years not 
long since gone. Violence and fraud was, seemingly, a pastime 
employed in the Reconstruction era, but we find that crimes 
against the ballot have been just as brazenly perpetrated when 
these oracles of the Southern "democracy" were not called upon 
to count out and to intimidate "carpet baggers" and "niggers." 
The theft of the governorship of Alabama from Hon. R. F.^Kolb 
a native Southerner and an ex-Confederate soldier, demon- 
strated indisputably the fact that the oligarchy is resolved not to 
yield political control and that no one except an agreed upon 
member of the regime shall be permitted to be elected to ofiice 
in the States which they fasten down with hooks of daring des- 
potism. Captain Kolb had been permitted to be elected to the 
office of Commissioner of Agriculture of Alabama by the "dem- 
ocracy." but the leaders of the machine rebelled against his 



10 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 

ambition for higher place. Popular before the people, more so 
than any man of his party in his time, the masses favored his 
aspirations and encouraged his candidacy for governor; and 
the white counties favored his nomination and he secured the 
delegations to the state convention. He was "figured out" 
there. He made his appeal to the electorate. The result was 
that the "democracy" was "saved" by immensely padded 
returns from the sixteen black belt counties in Alabama popu- 
lated largely by blacks and that enormous fictitious majorities, 
from these counties, were employed to overcome and to annul 
the majorities honestly polled by the whites in the forty-five 
white counties of the State — counties populated almost exclu- 
sively by whites. Returns were recorded for the "democracy" 
from black belt precincts where the polls were not in reality 
opened and where the formality of an election was dispensed with. 
Upon the day of the "official' ' count the majority of votes for Kolb 
were scaled down in the white counties, where the "democracy" 
controlled the returning boards, by the throwing out of the vote 
of many precincts voting Kolb majorities and this was necessary 
to overcome the revolt against the machine even though 
the black belt had already "done its duty." There is not an 
informed man > in Alabama who will not, perhaps, confess to 
the election of Kolb in 1892 by a tremendous majority. The 
supporters of the Kolb ticket were mocked at and defied. The 
bourbon leaders boastingly asserted: " Yes, we counted 3^ou 
out and we will do it again, if necessary, and what are you go- 
ing to do about it? " 

The present Populist candidate for President, Hon. Thomas 
E. Watson, had an experience in congressional politics in his 
district not very much unlike the gubernatorial campaign and 
election experience of Captain Kolb. The ballot box stuffers of 
Richmond county, Georgia, so much overdid it, however, that 
Mr. Watsons' opponent was compelled by the notoriety of the 
steal to become ashamed to accept the so open-handed stolen 
political goods. When the election managers of Richmond 
county, the one black belt county of the Congressional district, 
employed to annul the votes of the other several white counties 
voting majorities for Mr. Watson, these men were counting out 
a native Georgian who is the peer in intellect of any man living 
or that has ever lived in that commonwealth. His honesty of 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon OIvIGarchy 11 

purpose and his patriotic intent has only been equaled by his 
superb courage in standing out against the organized body of 
political highwaymen in his district and State who have robbed 
him and his fellow citizens of their manhood rights. 

But why recount these political outrages? Who is it that 
does not remember the election of Hon. H. Clay Evans to the 
governorship of Tennessee in 1894 and how he was defrauded by 
the " official " count when the face of the returns showed his 
election, even after the election had been one of highhanded 
corruption and fraud upon the part of the " democracy " in the 
counties of the black belt of that State where the unscrupulous 
ballot box stuffer could **get in his work." The history of 
Goebelism in Kentucky is not ancient history, either, and the 
nagging of a free people there to almost desperation, because of 
the revolutionary acts of the oligarchy, forms a chapter not soon 
to be forgotten. The "democracy" has much to say of the 
murder oi Goebel, but it overlooks the crime of raping "the 
goddess of liberty " of which he, and his cohorts, were guilty. 
Years will not efface from the name of this State of govern- 
mental outlawry, parading in the cloak of "democracy," the 
shame and disgrace brought upon this commonwealth. If 
Goebel were assassinated, lynched, or what not, is it not 
" democracy " to meet out summary punishment for unspeaka- 
ble crime? Why, then, this horror of "democracy" that the 
" democracy's " own has come home to them ? 

Is this a government of free men ? Is there not such a 
thing as the sovereignty of the people and the nationality of the 
citizen ? It is said by the patriotic orator upon the national 
forum that this land is not a despotism governed by a king, but 
a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign. What citizen 
has the right, then, to deny to another a right he demands for 
himself? The ballot is the scepter of our sovereign citizens' 
kingly authority. It is the source of our governing power. To 
strike down the ballot, therefore, is to strike a blow at America's 
only king. It is treason to our republican form of government. 
It is insult to the nationality of the citizen, it is treason to the 
nation ! Does not the republic owe it to itself and do not its 
free men owe it to the republic to protect to every citizen his 
right by reason of his sovereignty and his nationality ? Native 
white men of the South, men with blue eyes and straight hair, 



12 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 

have had their ballots thrown out, annulled, miscounted. 
Majorities have been overridden, scoffed at ! The great mass 
of voters in the South have been dashed back into sullen silence 
and into hopeless acquiescence and, under present conditions, 
they are as helpless as are the blacks upon whose necks the 
bourbon heel was long since pressed. 

Why nominate State and Congressional candidates to 
oppose this regime ? Their past record justifies the assertion 
that these oligarchists would hold elections in hogsheads and 
stuff the ballots in with pile drivers, and then swear to the re- 
turns ; and, further, the local courts would be no terror to their 
overt acts, this course being " necessary " to uphold their partic- 
ular brand of " white supremacy. " Candidates for Congress who 
oppose the oligarchy are counted out and denied the certificate 
of election and forced, if seated, to inaugurate an expensive con- 
test and frequently the taking of the testimony is attendent with 
the risk of one's life. The price is too great. The experiences 
of Hon. William F. Aldrich, of the Fourth Alabama district, 
the facts being upon records of Congress, bear out this conclu- 
sion. Three times elected, three times counted out, three times 
seated upon contests, one time held up at the point of drawn 
weapons to accommodate his opponent, who took this occasion 
to inflict bodily punishment upon him, — these are not at all 
pleasant enough experiences to inspire many men to espouse the 
cause of good government in the South. Yet, there are those 
who advocate ''letting the South alone" and leaving to the 
oligarchists of the South " the adjustment of these local condi- 
tions! " There is but one peaceful recourse for rightful settle- 
ment of this suffrage situation in the States of the South. That 
recourse is for the nation to protect to every citizen his national 
rights when infringed upon by the powers dominating the State. 
The prolonging of the meeting this issue is but leaving to the 
people of the States of the South the other possible resort to 
desperate measures, which public sentiment will not sustain and 
which step conservative men will not pursue or advise. Astute 
indeed is the appeal that comes up from these oligarchists to be 
permitted to go their own way in their own methods. These 
men are not pleading for "the South," they are begging for 
themselves. The liberties of the masses South are crushed be- 
neath the feet of these tyrants, whose prating hypocrisy does 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oi^igarchy 13 

not voice the will of the oppressed of this section. This appeal 
by the bourbon oligarchy goes upward to the North at a time, 
also, when the " democracy " South seeks to engraft itself upon 
the general government to the extent that the padded " demo- 
cratic ' ' South may fasten its hold upon the nation precisely as 
it has upon the States of the South. 



14 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Ougarchy 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BACKING BEHIND THE OLIGARCHY. 

The real backing behind the oligarchy controlling the States 
of the South, when disclosed, may be plainly seen to be the 
machine, the shell, the " loaded dice, " not the masses of the 
people. It is a characteristic of the cunning and shrewd 
"democracy" to speak of itself as " the South. " Let it be 
seen right here what part does the "democracy" consume of 
this scope of space and breadth of area they pretend to fill. The 
State of South Carolina is a "shining" example. The 
"democracy" of the State of B. R.Tillman sent to the Con- 
gress in the election of 1902 its entire delegation of seven mem- 
bers upon a combined " democratic " vote of 29,343. The total 
vote returned for all candidates was 32,185. The white voting 
population is 130,374. The total voting population of the State 
is 283,325. The lact is evident from this showing that the 
white vote of South Carolina is not in evidence as supporting 
the oligarchy in this State. There is a " taking to the woods " 
of the masses of whites, to say nothing whatever of the colored 
voting population that is cowed down and terror stricken into 
voiceless pathos. Might a colored man dare to speak for his 
rights under the Constitution of the Republic in a State where it 
is not dared, except to meet the assassin's bullet, for the white 
editor of a great daily newspaper to cry out against a dishonora- 
ble condition and as equally bad state of deviltry leadership? This 
situation is quite sufficient to halt the self-respecting citi- 
zen of the North from allying himself with a " demo- 
cracy " South such as lives and has its being in South Car- 
olina. If " democracy " means that the people shall rule, then 
what is the "democratic" party in South Carolina? The editor 
who dares to become the defender of real democracy must be 
borne to the tomb. The voter who may cast a ballot to estab-. 
lish republican government is counted out. The republican 
who dares to speak out for it is "an enemy to the South" and 
"a foe to white supremacy." The whole vote of the "democ- 



Risk and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 15 

racy" degenerate State of South Carolina, for all electoral tick- 
ets in 1900, was but 50,815. 

Mississippi leads the van of the oligarchical governments of 
the South, and her "favored son," Hon. John Sharpe Williams, 
seated himself in the Congress in 1902 upon a vote of 1,433. No 
opposition — of course not! Who would oppose anything or any- 
body "democratic" in Mississippi? One Mississippi member 
"broke into congress" in the election of 1902 with the mere 
handful of 1,146 votes. Of course this was all that was "neces- 
sary." The entire delegation from the State of Mississippi was 
elected to Congress upon a combined vote of 18,058. This State 
has a white voting population of 150,922, the total voting popu- 
lation being 349,177. From "democracy" to oligarchy, from 
oligarchy to Vardaman is the Mississippi situation. What a 
condition! 

The great State of Alabama may challenge comparison with 
these two States, perhaps, for the oligarchy has done "what it 
could" for "white supremacy." The total number of males of 
voting age in Alabama is 232,294 whites and 181,471 blacks, 
making, in all, 413,862. Alabama's oligarchy polled, in the 
gubernatorial election of 1902, 67,649 "democratic" ballots for 
governor and there is a vote of 24,190 accredited to the republi- 
can candidate. There were 2,980 colored citizens permitted to 
register and participate in this election. 

As compared with the congressional districts in States of 
the North, the Southern method is an easy road to Congress 
when traveled by the oligarchist representative. In the Xlth 
Ohio district, represented by Mr. Grosvenor, there were 42,611 
ballots cast for both candidates for Congress. This is only 
24,233 more ballots than were required to elect the entire Miss- 
issippi delegation. Mr. Grosvenor received 28,124, while it 
required only 1,433 votes to seat Mr. Williams. Mr. Cannon, 
of the XVIIIth Illinois district, received 22,941 ballots in 1902, 
while his democratic opponent received 15,254 ballots, and the 
prohibition candidate in Mr. Cannon's district makes a showing 
of 1,166 ballots. The prohibition candidate appears to lead Mr. 
Williams in getting out his followers to the polls. In the Xth 
Indiana district, represented by Mr. Crumpacker, the vote for 
all congressional candidates, in 1902, was 46,158 or 13,973 more 
ballots than were polled for the entire South Carolina delega- 



16 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon OIvIGarchy 

tion. Thus it does seem that the real backing behind the 
oligarchy of the States of the South is not such as to entitle the 
leaders of this regime to arrogate to themselves the spokesman- 
ship for "the South" and to assume to themselves the speaking 
of public sentiment of and for the actual South. 

The bourbon "democracy" of the South, with its "white 
supremacy" shell, is but a whited sepulchre of political preten- 
sion. It may endeavor to whitewash itself without, but within 
it is full of the decayed bones of a secession "democracy" and 
the tainted garments of a corrupt oligarchy. Posing as the 
keepers of the ark of the covenant of "white supremacy," these 
oligarchists have usurped the government of the States of the 
South from whites and blacks. The bourbon regime finally took 
the loaded political black belt dice with which to encompass the 
overthrow of the uprising of whites in rebellion against the 
"democratic" machine. The movement of this political des- 
potism is now Northward. To the Southland the oligarchy has 
accomplished its height of political oppression. Its despotism is 
supreme. Popular government is here buried in the mire of 
bourbonism and only a Vardaman could pile on more political 
filth. Shall rights of men of the North be further invaded and 
encroached upon and become, sooner or later, so poisoned with 
political pollution as has become the South? 

The apportionment prior to the civil war, conceding to the 
South three-fifths of the slave population to be counted in the 
representation basis, then made three slaves South equal to five 
whites North in the general government. The present status of 
the oligarchists is the usurpation of the representation of all 
blacks and a majority of whites and the leaders of the minority 
regime of force and fraud, while denying the suppressed vote 
any voice in the government of the States, insist upon it as right 
that the North should permit the oligarchists to misrepresent 
this immense population in the affairs of the republic. The 
negro is taxed, but is not a voter in state or national elections. 
The "democracy" claims that it would be taxation without rep- 
resentation to cut down "the South's'' representation in the gen- 
eral government ! Is it that these leaders of this reprehensible 
condition believe that they can fool part of the North all the 
time? How long will the patience of a patriotic people, who 
gave to the nation a Lincoln and a Grant, be so trifled with? 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon OIvIGarchy 17 

The method by which the "democratic" oligarchy fastens 
its hold upon the *' democratic " machine in Alabama, 
and the condition is the same in other Southern states, 
is the basing of the representation in the conventions 
of the party and in the Alabama legislature upon an 
apportionment embracing the disfranchised blacks in the black 
belt counties and thereby prohibiting the control of the party or 
the legislature by the white counties of the states. Tallapoosa 
county, in Alabama, with a white registered vote of 4,006 has 
only two members in the House and ^ senator, it requiring a 
district of this and one other white county to name a senator, 
while the black belt county oi Lowdnes, in the same congress- 
ional district, with a white registered vote of 1,061, has two 
members in the House and one state senator! There are not 
more than twenty-five registered colored voters in Tallapoosa 
county and only about fifty colored registered voters in lyowdnes. 
In "democratic" conventions in Alabama Tallapooso county has 
seven votes and Lowdnes eleven. Thus it is apparent how and 
why the strength and the supremacy of the black belt oligarchy, 
even within the lines of the boasted party of "white supremacy." 



18 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon OIvIGarchy 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE DEMOCRATIC RACE ISSUE. 



It is the endeavor of the leaders of the "democracy" in the 
South to have it appear to the North that the soul issue of para- 
mount importance to the South is the alleged race issue. Much 
talking, and more editorial matter, is indulged in concerning 
the "necessity" of preserving the domination of the "democ- 
racy" in behalf of the "white supremacy." It requires votes to 
win with in elections, where conditions permit votes of sufficient 
number to win, and to win the majority of votes South in oppo- 
sition to the "democracy" must come from Southern whites. 
The "democracy" pretends to speak for "the South" and yet 
this oligarchy, without the votes of a majority of whites, is the 
self-esteemed only preserver of good government and the inter- 
ests of whites of the South. The inference is to be had that the 
oligarchy is apprehensive that if they permit the majority of 
whites to control that the states of the South will post haste be 
"black supremacy" and terrible to contemplate! Why this dis- 
trust of the Southern white people? From Mississippi, where 
the negro is without any voice whatever in government, most is 
heard about the jeopardy of "white supremacy." There arises 
from Mississippi an amazing tirade of abuse of the negro and the 
onslaught upon him is terrific. Just how the "white suprem- 
acy" of the oligarchy may be affected in Mississippi by the negro 
is beyond understanding, for the ballot is solely in the hands of 
whites and the machinery of elections is absolutely in the con- 
trol of the oligarchy. The governor of this state is not 
only opposed to the negro being permitted to vote, but he as 
vehemently insists that the colored man should not be educated. 
It will be recalled that the opposition to the Blair Educational 
bill came from the representatives in Congress from the South 
and the measure was rejected because it would help the educa- 
tion of blacks in the South and, furthermore, hasten the awaken- 
ing of illiterate whites to their political thralldom. One mem- 
ber of Congress from Alabama opposed Federal aid to education 
upon the grounds that education caused the white farmer boy to 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oi^igarchy 19 

get too proud to work in the sun and turned him from the plan- 
tation ! Deep down behind this sophistry the real reason lay. 
It has always been the spirit of bourbonism to suppress the 
possibilities arising before the poorer whites of the South and to 
beat them backward instead of aiding them onward. Yet it was 
the poor whites of the South who were forced to the front in the 
war of secession and did the principal battling; the Confederate 
State of Alabama, with other States South, having passed an act 
exempting from conscription for service in the war the large 
holder of chattel slaves ! To now inflame these poor whites 
again to further subservience to the oligarchy, vulgar abuse of 
President Roosevelt is indulged in, by Mississippi leaders especi- 
ally, and the election of President Roosevelt, it is declared by 
the whole "democratic " Southern press, means the putting of 
the negro over whites. This is not done that it is needful now 
to keep the negro down, but because it is determined as essen- 
tial to the plans of keeping the oligarchy up. The President 
has pursued the policy of President McKinley in the matter of 
Southern appointments except that he has seen fit to appoint 
certain democrats to positions in the South. It appears that the 
oligarchy deems it necessary to create great furor upon the ne- 
gro question that either they may bolster up their regimes or 
else force the present President to turn over the whole Federal 
patronage to the advocates of the " democratic " race issue in 
the South. 

There is no movement possible upon the part of the dis- 
franchised negroes of Mississippi to be elected to ofiice or to cap- 
ture the government of the commonwealth. Although the Hon. 
John Sharpe Williams is advocating this general government 
giving the right of representative government to the Phillipine 
natives, yet his appeals in this regard have not, as yet, aroused 
or "inflamed" the colored citizens of Mississippi to beseech 
him to lead a movement in behalf of the rights of more capable 
colored men nearer home. The Mississippi oligarchy is appa- 
rently safe and secure, as far as the manipulation of the electo- 
rate is concerned, and the mere handful of voters have it all to 
themselves. This eternal and unceasing wail about the " nig- 
ger, " however, continues to go up and appeals to the passions 
of the lawless are made until the incited to vengeance white mob 



20 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 

shoots the convicted victim of crime as he stands between the 
courts and the gallows. 

The race issue in national campaigns is brought into play- 
by the Southern " democracy " for purely partisan usage and 
this usage is a cowardly sham to turn the voter North from clear 
insight into the real suffrage condition South as it really and 
vitally effects not only the liberties of whites South, but, also, 
the suffrage rights of whites North. The extent of this race 
issue in Mississippi is that the negro is employed by the oli- 
garchy as a political scape-goat and that he, in his unfortunate 
condition, is employed to condone and to cloak the political 
rascality of those who usurp the control of government from 
both whites and blacks. 

This unending imposition upon the whites of the South and 
this political treatment of the colored race of the South, upon 
the part of the " democracy, " is to be censured in the strongest 
language. How wonderful it is that whites are so misused and 
aroused beyond reason to the extent that the welfare of their 
homes and their liberties are invaded as the consequence of this 
Southern misgovernment now dominant solely by reason of this 
imaginary "democratic" race issue? How strange it is that 
Southern white men wall become crazed with passion and in 
certain localities become a band of murderers because of a purely 
"democratic" race issue sentiment that appeals to supposed 
conditions absolutely inexistent? The manner in which wrong 
doing by an individual member of the colored race is taken up 
to arouse popular sentiment adverse to the whole race is unjust 
and without any palliation. It is cruel, it is shameful, to visit 
the crime of one upon all. It is infamous to so ingeniously 
work up the sentiment of lawlessness as against the colored race 
to the wide-spread extent that this inflamed feeling reaches out 
and finds formation in mobs and goes further to the extremity of 
resulting in death to the innocent because of the crime of the 
guilty. There is a race issue to this extent in the South and 
this was demonstrated not many weeks ago in Georgia when the 
thirst for vengeance against the whole race led to the shooting 
of an old colored man as he sat, harming no one, in his own 
humble cabin home. Then, perhaps, there may be found some- 
thing of a race issue, in fact, to the extent that the rule of the 
oligarchy in Alabama, and other Southern States, has developed 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oi^igarchy 21 

the system of peonage, when the old oligarchy of slavery thought 
not of other forms of servitude than chattel slavery. In chattel 
slavery, however, the submissive blacks slept in the cabin un- 
chained, in peonage they are housed in the chain-gang stockade. 

There were, by census reports, 57,310 white prisoners in the 
United States in 1890, while the number of blacks were 24,277. 
It appears that both races supply violators of law. It is true, 
however, that the offenses of the colored race are not to as 
great extent of a grave order of crime as newspapers South 
would have it believed. The larger number of offenses are of 
little moment as compared to the crimes of whites and, consider- 
ing that there are now 9,312,585 colored persons in the United 
States, the number imprisoned is not so bad a showing for a 
people out of bondage, with their poor opportunities and envi- 
ronments. There are whites, as well as blacks, who commit 
horrible acts of violence. White men hold up trains and blow 
up banks. Mobs are not incited, however, to shoot down whites 
indiscriminately. Neither is the whole white race damned by 
adverse public opinion because of the sin of the white individ- 
ual. It is not true of the colored race, unfortunately for them 
and for the efforts of those among this race who strive, amid 
difficulties known only to God and them, to raise the standard 
of their people. The " democratic " race issue is most unchari- 
table in that lawlessness of the lawless is visited upon the strug- 
gles of the many to elevate and to uplift to higher and loftier 
standard of citizenship. No people look with more horror to the 
results of the awful crime of rape than the better element and 
the predominating members of this race and they keenly feel 
that the committing of this crime by some one brutal member of 
this race puts an intolerant burden of race hate upon all. Their 
leaders and preachers are crying out against this crime, which, 
although seldom it may occur, is heralded far and wide and 
brings hardships to all this people. 

There is much to be said for the negro of the South that is 
not denunciatory. Henry W. Grady knew this and he gave 
utterance to these facts. It is not necessary here to recount the 
wonderful progress of this people but a few years ago in servi- 
tude. It is needless to tell how the chattel slave, illiterate and 
in poverty, turned his career to the life of a free man. Begin- 
ning in ignorance and want, he has risen to education, to prop- 



22 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 

erty and to usefulness. The cabin of the slave has produced 
one of the world's greatest personages now upon the arena of 
life. Colored homes, colored farms, colored schools, colored 
churches, colored banks, colored stores, colored teachers, colored 
doctors, colored lawyers, — this is evidence that this race has not 
been wholly in idleness and depravity! Not of inflammatory dis- 
position, the black man guarded and cared for the homes of those 
of the whites absent fighting to keep him in servitude. He raised 
supplies on the black belt farms to go forward to feed the men 
struggling on the battle field to keep him in chattel slavery. 
Out of his taxes today are taken funds to pay pensions to the 
Confederate soldiers who fought to overcome the benefactors of 
his race. These black men are not members of any newspaper- 
correspondent created "Before Day Club" and the South knows 
this creation of fiction is an infamy and a slander. These men 
are not terrors to representative government nor to the South. 
They are not considered by the people of the South, whose opin- 
ions are entitled to respect, as a menace to the state or nation. 
Their labor made the wealth and really sustained the homes of 
the old slave-holding aristocracy. Their toil is today contribut- 
ing much to the wealth and to the happiness of Southern homes. 
The true white men of the South are not such political cowards 
that they fear the domination of this people as is pretended by 
the "democratic" press. It is shameful, it is disgraceful, to 
make this race the "democratic" foot ball for the gratification of 
political spleen and the venting of partisan rancor. It is a sin, 
before God, to so enlarge upon the crimes of the few to the 
injury of all. It is unpardonable to so persecute an humble 
race that there may be sought to hide behind the flood of abuse 
heaped upon it the political chicanery of a governing regime 
that is fat with despotism and with fraud. 

Social equality as between the races is the esteemed strong- 
est string upon the "democratic" race issue harp. An unceas- 
ing cry goes up from the mouths of these leaders of the regime 
of oligarchism about their "awful" pretended apprehensions that 
themselves and their families may be compelled to associate 
with a "nigger." It is known of all men that the law of this 
republic has nothing whatever to say or do with any man's 
selection af his personal associations. This is entirely with the 
individual. For that matter, there is not such a thing as social 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon OIvIGarchy 23 

equality among the whites in this country. Just why the recog- 
nition by the President of the attainments of the greatest leader 
of the colored race, at a White House luncheon, should be so 
shocking to the sensibilities of some is explained, perhaps, 
upon the theory that this act upon the part of the President was 
considered as legitimate, when the only type of social equality 
traceable in some places in the South is of the productive form 
of "illegitimate." Whatever be the form or the section in 
which it exists, social equality as between the white and black 
races is a matter of personal will and not of national legislation. 
Judge Parker and other Northern democrats may commune in 
church on Sundays with colored members, but little is said in 
Southern newspapers of what others than President Roosevelt 
may feel inclined as a matter of individual right to do. The 
election of either Parker or Roosevelt will have no effect upon 
social equality as between the races, but "democratic" success 
may effect social equality to the extent that the soup house may 
again come into necessity and bring to a social level the usual 
number of jobless men of which a "democratic" administration 
is wonderfully overproductive and upon this plane both whites 
and blacks have met both South and North. 



24 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Owgarchy 



CHAPTER V. 



CONCLUSION. 



That method of political fortification by intimidation and 
coercion and that characteristic of election manipulation, bred 
by the conditions consequent from the springing up of a South 
of slave -holding aristocracy, is a living and daring force today. 
The institution of chattel slavery poisoned the every branch of 
governmental institutions of the South. The pernicious system 
produced industrial and social conditions the inevitable conse- 
quence of which was the formation of a slave owning aristocracy 
and as a natural result the growth of a slave holding oligarchy. 
That the 500,000 slave owners could plunge the South into 
secession and drench the nation in blood is no paragon of 
wonder when we weigh present conditions with this situation of 
the past. 

Reference has been made to the bourbon oligarchy of the 
three states of Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi. 
Observe that the entire population of these three states, accord- 
ing to the last census, is 4,720,283 and yet the combined vote 
for the "democratic" delegations to the Congress in 1902 is but 
115,475. The whole vote accredited to all candidates for Con- 
gress from these states is but 175,435. To total voting popula- 
tion of these three states is 1,046,364. The white voting popu- 
lation alone is 513,591. The total voting population being 
1,046,364 and the combined vote of the three states for the 
"democratic" delegations to the Congress being 115,475, it is 
apparent that the ' ' democracy' ' in these commonwealths was with- 
out the ballots of 930,889 persons of voting age in support of 
their cause in this congressional election. The white voting 
population being 513,591, and the vote polled being 115,475, it 
is evident that 398,116 whites of voting age were not "demo- 
cratic" participators in this voting. These three states of an 
entire population of 4,720,283, with a polled and governing vote 
of 115,475, are representative of the general prevalent condition 
in the present South of political intolerance. 

Just preceding the civil war, for a Southern citizen to 



Rise: and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 25 

declare himself as opposed to secession was then to be branded 
as "an enemy to the South." The word "traitor" finally 
became a rather mild epithet compared with other terms applied 
to the calm and conservative citizen who deplored the rash and 
rancorous course of those making way for plunging the nation 
in war. As it was then, it is now, for the pressure of intoler- 
ance and of abuse lashes the masses and coerces them further 
and further into submission to as merciless a dictatorship as ever 
dwarfed a state or silenced popular government. To protest 
now. against the methods of this regime is to invite a torrent of 
wrathful censure and to turn loose the flood-gates of terrific 
assault from prostituted papers. The motive is to crush out and 
to annihilate any formidable opposition of zealous leadership 
that rises up to "a source of annoyance to the peace and har- 
mony of the state!" Under this condition of usurped power it 
is often that "reptiles may crawl to heights where eagles can not 
soar." It is not strange, then, that the solidity of this fortified 
reign of fraud may throw every branch of its governing authority 
to protect and bolster up its existence. 

At this time the extreme bourbon press of the South is 
insisting that the continuing in office of President Roosevelt 
means the enforcing upon the South, or an effort to do so, of 
social equality as between whites and blacks. President Roose- 
velt is even denounced as "an inflamer of the negro" by many 
of the "representative" newspapers of the "democracy" in the 
South. The national "democracy" could have added nothing 
in the campaign book to the campaign of slander and villifica- 
tion that has been waged upon President Roosevelt b}^ the 
Southern "democracy" and certainly it was not needed to place 
any personal attacks in this book in order to arouse abuse of this 
great leader. Of course it is avowed that Southern white men 
who support President Roosevelt and the republican cause are 
"enemies to the South." Appealing to low prejudices, distort- 
ing of facts, miscounting and over-counting ballots — this is the 
democratic aptitude. There is no high-planed discussion by the 
"democracy" of the actual issues really effecting the welfare of 
the Southern people and the campaign is pitched upon the same 
low lines of crafty procedure, with very much parallel appeals, 
as has been the custom in every presidential canvass since the 
civil war. 



26 Rise and Reign of the Bourbon Oligarchy 

That the great mass of voters North, that the great body of 
citizenship of the general government, are prepared to permit 
the national "democracy" of which the Southern oligarchy is 
the dominating influence, to come into charge of the national 
affairs and to lower the national standard of political morals and 
methods to that of the state of the South can not, for a moment, 
be feared. A check to the inflammatory "democracy" of this 
section has been the continuance of the republican party in 
authority. Administration of the Federal courts of the South by 
others than the peonage and kuklux sympathizers has had sub- 
stantial effect as a restraining influence. It would be unfortu- 
nate indeed, at this time, for the "red shirt" advocates of "dem- 
ocracy" to come into charge of the Federal Department of 
Justice affairs in the South in addition to the dangerous hold 
they now have upon the states of the South. Dark would be 
the day for the forlorn blacks who would fall entirely to the 
baneful prey of the advocates of the "democratic" race issue in 
the South, especially in Mississippi and South Carolina. 

It is exacting too onerous a submission to compel the con- 
tinuous yielding of the great masses of whites to the insidious 
control of this force and fraud-entrenched despotism. It is nur- 
turing accumulating wrongs for the nation to avoid intercession 
when and where only national interference can restore and 
uplift the beaten down nationality of the Southern citizen. 
The humble blacks have rebelled not, nor sought violent rebel- 
lion, against those who have deprived them of their sovereignty 
rights, but, upon one occasion, the murderings of outraged 
whites in Alabama has caused to be brought, in recent years, 
the armed soldiery of the oligarchy to quiet the wrath of the 
masses of the people who had gathered at the very doors of the 
state capitol and even then and there reluctant to yield to 
further usurpation by the "democracy." The unrest of another 
Southern state reached a more dramatic climax. There would 
be no entreating, by those from whom the appeal comes, to 
"let the South alone" were it not for the political treachery 
of these leaders, themselves, to this very, very, same Southland. 

In an address delivered by the Hon. John Hay, July 6th, 
this year, he said: " If the slave holders had been content with 
their unquestioned predominance, they might for many years 
have controlled the political and social world. It was natural 



Rise and Reign of the Bourbon OIvIGarchy 27 

for the conservative people of the North to say; ' we deplore 
the existence of slavery, but we are all to bame for it; we should 
not cast upon our brother in the South the burdens and perils of 
its abolition. We must bear with the unfortunate conditions of 
things and take our share of its inconveniences. ' But the 
slave holding party could not rest content. The ancients said 
that madness was the fate of those judged by the gods. Con- 
tinual aggression is the necessity of a false position. They felt 
instinctively that if their system were permanently to endure it 
must be extended, and to attain this object they were ready to 
risk everything. They rent in twain the compromises which 
had protected them so long. They tore down the bulwarks 
which had once restricted and defended them; and confiding in 
their strength and our patience they boldly announced and inau- 
gurated the policy of indefinite extension of their " peculiar 
institution. " 

Again, in their madness of political desperation, the leaders 
of the " democracy " South now instinctively feel " that if their 
system were permanently to endure it must be extended, and to 
attain this object they were ready to risk everything. " 



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